German Currents 2025

GERMAN CURRENTS 2025
October 17-21, 2025

German Currents, L.A.’s Festival of German Film, returns this fall for its 19th edition, taking place from October 17–21, with screenings at the Aero Theatre, Los Feliz 3, the Goethe-Institut Los Angeles and the Gardena Cinema.

This year’s film selection is a vibrant bouquet: thought-provoking, emotional, tragic, and humorous. You will encounter strong female leads as well as men in search of their own identity. Those drawn to historical narratives will discover fresh perspectives on pivotal moments in German history, while genre fans can also look forward to a debut feature-length science fiction thriller.

This year marks 35 years since the reunification of Germany, the festival reflects on this anniversary not only with the Opening Film TWO TO ONE by Natja Brunckhorst. The motif of freedom seems to run like a common thread through the program: the freedom to be true to oneself, the individual’s freedom within a community, the desire to break free from societal norms – for better or worse, and the courage to risk everything in the pursuit of freedom and justice.

The following actors and filmmakers will attend the festival: actor Ronald Zehrfeld (TWO TO ONE), writer-director Bernhard Wenger (PEACOCK) and director Mariko Minoguchi (DIE ZEIT VERBRECHEN) as festival guests to present their works in person.

For more information and to register for complimentary tickets to this year’s screenings, please click the following link: www.germancurrents.com

The German Currents Film Festival 2025 is a co-production of the Goethe-Institut Los Angeles  and the American Cinematheque, with the support of The Friends of Goethe, ELMA, Condor, The Austrian Consulate General in Los Angeles, Advantage Austria, Tupetz Wine Connection, Paulaner USA, Paulaner Sunset, Villa Aurora & Thomas Mann House e.V., the German Film Office, our media partners Deutsche Welle, KPFK Radio, Campus Circle, our educational outreach partners Creating Creators, and in cooperation with the  German Consulate General in Los Angeles.

 

THE MASTERMIND

2025 | USA | 110m

Written and Directed by Kelly Reichardt

Starring Josh O'Connor and Alana Haim

Only in Theaters 

October 17 (NY/LA), October 24 (Expanding)

In a sedate corner of Massachusetts circa 1970, JB Mooney (Josh O'Connor) an unemployed carpenter turned amateur art thief, plans his first big heist. When things go haywire, his life unravels.

Written and Directed by Kelly Reichardt
Starring: Josh O'Connor, Alana Haim, Gabby Hoffman, John Magaro, Hope Davis, and Bill Camp
Cinematography: Christopher Blauvelt
Editor: Kelly Reichardt
Composer: Rob Mazurek
Production Design: Anthony Gasparro

Kelly Reichardt’s latest film The Mastermind is set in a Massachusetts suburb in 1970. James Blaine Mooney (Josh O’Connor), an unemployed carpenter dabbles in petty art theft. With his eyes on some easy money, Mooney plots his first big heist with a gang of small-time thugs, orchestrating a daring daylight raid on a small local art museum to steal a series of abstract paintings by American artist Arthur Dove. When things go fully haywire, Mooney’s world begins to unravel.

The Mastermind looks and feels very different from Reichardt’s other films. “Jean-Pierre Melville‘s [films] are my favorite” Reichardt states, citing the French director’s later neo-noir movies like Le Cercle rouge (1970) and Un Flic (1972), “and the ‘hard novels’ of Georges Simenon—plots where the outcome is always doom.” Upending the genre’s typical time structure, Reichardt’s story places the heist in the film’s first quarter, leaving the remainder of its run to deal with the event’s after-effects. “It’s an aftermath film, an unraveling film,” she says. Continuing a theme that runs throughout the director’s career, The Mastermind examines what happens to a person—and those around them—once their actions have consequences.

The burglary takes place in Framingham, Massachusetts, a normally quiet municipality located halfway between Worcester and Boston. J.B. Mooney and his accomplices lift a suite of paintings from the fictional Framingham Museum of Art. Reichardt decided against having the criminals go for the big-name Old Masters. ”J.B. isn’t that ambitious. He goes for the paintings he’s familiar with and feels a connection to,” the filmmaker says. Instead, she chose to have them target an exhibition of paintings by Arthur Dove, a favorite artist of Reichardt’s. An influential but lesser-known modernist who is often cited as the first abstract painter in the United States, Dove worked throughout half of the twentieth century until his death in 1946. Mooney’s gang grab four paintings by Dove: Willow Tree (1937), Yellow Blue Green Brown (1941), Tree Forms (1932) and Tanks & Snowbanks (1938). Elsewhere in the exhibit, we can see Red Sun (1932), one of Dove’s most iconic works.

For the museum’s exterior scenes, Reichardt’s team shot at the Cleo Rogers Memorial Library in Columbus, Indiana. Completed in 1969, the facility was designed by architect I. M. Pei with an eye to revitalizing the town’s center. The library is a humble modernist brick-box building, opening onto a circular front plaza that features a monumental Henry Moore bronze (Large Arch, 1971) at its center.

To perfect the look that she wanted for her film, Reichardt and cinematographer Christopher Blauvelt revisited the 70s films of Dutch cinematographer Robby Müller, particularly the muted, brunette-tinged color schemes of The American Friend (1977), among other titles. “Christopher and I, years ago, got the chance to see John Huston’s Fat City (1972) on the screen together. That film, I think, is really part of our collective DNA. Like a lot of people my age, you kind of can’t escape the influences of photography heavies like Stephen Shore and William Eggleston.”

The film was scored by musician Rob Mazurek of the jazz ensemble Chicago Underground Trio, working with ensemble member Chad Taylor. Mazurek and Taylor each provided solos, on trumpet and drums, respectively, and the music was recorded at studios in Philadelphia and Marfa, Texas. Having a full jazz soundtrack is a departure for Reichardt, who has used the musical genre only briefly in her prior work. 

The film had its world premiere at the main competition of the 2025 Cannes Film Festival on May 23, 2025, where it was nominated for the Palme d'Or. It is scheduled to be released in New York and Los Angeles by Mubi on October 17, 2025.

TAFFF 2025 - Documentaries

 BARDOT, LA SCALA, GISÈLE PELICOT, THE MAKING OF SHOAH, LIFE UNDER SIEGE IN GAZA…

THE AMERICAN FRENCH FILM FESTIVAL BRINGS ICONIC NAMES AND POWERFUL CONTEMPORARY THEMES TO ITS 29th ANNUAL EVENT WITH THIS YEAR’S DOCUMENTARY FILM LINEUP

As part of the pre-announcements of the program for the 29th edition of The American French Film Festival (TAFFF), the French American Cultural Fund  has just released this year’s documentary line up. Included this year are documentary feature films that delve into the histories of a famous French icon, a legendary opera house, and a ground-breaking Holocaust film, as well as topics ripped from the headlines, including an inside look at the trial of Gisèle Pelicot and a terrifying and intimate portrait of life in Gaza. The festival takes place at the DGA Theater Complex in Hollywood October 28-November 3.

The six films in competition for the 2025 TAFFF Best Documentary Award are:

ALL I HAD WAS NOTHINGNESS / Je n’avais que le néant: SHOAH par Claude Lanzmann.  West Coast Premiere. (Written and directed by Guillaume Ribot). Forty years after the release of Claude Lanzmann's nine-and-a-half-hour masterpiece Shoah, Guillaume Ribot uses outtakes from that groundbreaking film, and a voiceover in the director's own words, to recount his relentless pursuit of truth in a quest to capture the concrete reality of the Holocaust. The 1985 landmark film is now part of UNESCO’s Memory of the World register.

BARDOT. North American Premiere. (Directed by Golden Globe winner Alain Berliner. Written by Elora Thevenet, Nicolas Bary, Alain Berliner, Jessica Menendez.) In this Biopic using exclusive and rare archival footage, French star Brigitte Bardot opens the gates of her private estate in Saint-Tropez and candidly reflects upon her life. Now 90, she and those close to her recount her meteoric rise to fame, her notorious love affairs, the pioneering role she played in redefining the female image, and her lifelong battle for animal rights. 

DRUGGED AND ABUSED: NO MORE SHAME / Soumission chimique: Pour que la honte change de camp. North American Premiere.  (Directed by Linda Bendali. Written by Linda Bendali and Andrea Rawlins-Gaston.) The film follows Caroline Darian as she prepares for the trial of her father, Dominique Pelicot, who had solicited strangers to sexually assault his drugged and unconscious wife, Gisèle Pelicot for years. Struggling with that truth, Caroline has worked tirelessly to raise public awareness of the widespread scourge of drug-facilitated rape in France. 

LA SCALA: THE FORCE OF DESTINY / La Force du Destin: une saison à La Scala. North American Premiere. (Written and directed by Anissa Bonnefont.) A performance of Verdi’s La Forza del Destino marks the opening of the Milan opera season at La Scala. A major cultural event since 1951, "la prima" draws opera lovers from all over the world. La Scala: The Force of Destiny takes us behind the scenes, from the company's first rehearsals to opening night.

PUT YOUR SOUL ON YOUR HAND AND WALK.  West Coast Premiere  (Co-written and co-directed by Fatma Hassona  and Sepideh Farsi.)  Denied entrance into Rafah to film the war in Gaza, director Sepideh Farsi is introduced to Fatma Hassona, a 24-year-old aspiring photojournalist living in Gaza. Thus begins a year-long series of video calls between an Iranian filmmaker in Paris, and a radiant, talented, astonishingly optimistic young woman simply trying to live her life as the bombs fall all around her.

TELL HER THAT I LOVE HER / Dites lui que je l’aime. US Premiere (Co-written by Romane Bohringer and Gábor Rassov. Directed by Romane Bohringer.)  Reading Clémentine Autain's memoir about being abandoned by a mother who died very young, director Romane Bohringer sees a carbon copy of her own childhood experience. So she plumbs their shared generational trauma, creating parallels and breaking stylistic ground in autobiographical documentary filmmaking along the way.

The Documentary Competition is presented in association with Cercamon, Federation Studio, Ginger & Fed, Kino Lorber, Janus Films, Kino Lorber, Kinology, mk2 Films, Studio TF1 and TimpelPictures.

These documentaries will compete for the 2025 TAFFF Awards, which will be awarded during a ceremony held in Paris after the Festival. The full Festival line up, including all Feature films, will be announced on September 30. All Films will be presented in English or with English subtitles.